According to the Ecology Alaska website, one of the bald eagle researchers I photographed tagging bald eagles last fall, Rachel Wheat, was recently awarded a prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. The award will fund her work tagging and tracking bald eagles for the next three years. Congratulations Rachel!
One of the things I thought interesting about her work last year was that she and others on her team funded their research in a novel, non-traditional way through the crowd-funding website, Kickstarter. I thought crowd funding research was an innovative idea when she told me about it. Also somewhat unusual, she and others on the Ecology Alaska team produce a website with detailed field reports on the progress of their research and what it is like doing field research in the wilds of Alaska.
At RIGHT: Rachel Wheat, a graduate student at the University of California Santa Cruz, poses for a photo with bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) “4P” before releasing the bald eagle back into the wild. Wheat is conducting a migration study of the bald eagles that visit the Chilkat River for her doctoral dissertation. She hopes to learn how closely eagles track salmon availability across time and space. The bald eagles are being tracked using solar-powered GPS satellite transmitters (also known as a PTT – platform transmitter terminal) that attach to the backs of the eagles using a lightweight harness. A handmade leather hood is placed over the bald eagle’s eyes to keep the bird calm. Leather booties cover the bald eagle’s powerful talons to protect researchers during the process of taking measurements and attaching the GPS satellite transmitter.
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After posting my research photos, I received a few questions from worried friends wondering if I shot any bald eagle or landscape still photos — the kind that people like to “ooh and ah” over. Well, yes, not to worry. I did shoot a few. If you saw my previous blog post on the bald eagle researchers working on the Chilkat River you know that most of my time was spent with them.
One thing I neglected to mention in that post is that in addition to recording hours and hours of audio, I also shot video. Actually, a lot of video. I’m confident to say that I shot more video than stills. While it is a bit overwhelming at the moment to have to edit, but I’m looking forward to working with that material. I’ll talk about my reasons for my emphasis on video in a future blog post.
So here is a slideshow of a few of my favorite still photos from my trip last October – November on the Chilkat River in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve near Haines, Alaska.
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Continuing with my recent post on bald eagle research being conducted on the Chilkat River in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, I thought it would be interesting to show a video clip and photos of an eagle that is part of a different research project.
Research bald eagle number 24 is one of three eagles that are part of the research study being conducted by Steve Lewis of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Juneau, Alaska. The study is examining the effects of eagle nest removal at the Juneau airport (approximately 95 miles away). Number 24 is one of a pair of bald eagles who were nesting near the pond airstrip where float planes land and take off.
A year earlier, I photographed research bald eagle number 88, a control bird in that study. Research bald eagle number 88 originally had a GPS tracking pack, but later lost it. Interestingly, I photographed research bald eagle number 24 very near were I had previously photographed research bald eagle number 88.
Unlike the eagles I recently photographed that were part of Rachel Wheat‘s study, research bald eagles numbers 24 and 88 have a patagial tag (green wing tag) along with the solar powered GPS tracking satellite transmitter. The transmitter’s antenna can be seen sticking out of the eagle’s feathers to the right of the green patagial tag.
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Rachel Wheat, a graduate student at the University of California Santa Cruz, releases bald eagle “4P” back into the wild. Wheat is conducting a migration study of bald eagle that visit the Chilkat River using GPS satellite transmitters. Note the GPS transmitter on the eagle’s back and the dual leg bands. One leg band is used by the researcher and the other is registered with the U.S. Geological Survey.
On my most recent trip late last fall to photograph bald eagles on the Chilkat River, I made a conscious decision to shake my photography up. While I don’t claim to have the definitive bald eagle photograph (yet), I do have quite a few keepers in my archive. It was time to move beyond simply photographing bald eagles themselves and begin to take a more all-encompassing approach to the subject of the bald eagles that visit the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve near Haines, Alaska.
To start me in that direction, I decided exploring the subject of bald eagles from the perspective of a researcher would be a good place to start. This would allow me to get back to my storytelling roots, while at the same time broaden my knowledge of bald eagles.
So instead of spending time by myself photographing eagles, I spent time photographing those who study them. Lucky for me, there were two distinctly different groups of researchers working on the river while I was there. Both with interesting stories to tell.
Counting bald eagles – Haines School Citizen Science Class
First, was a Citizen Science class from the local school. Since 2009, students have been conducting a weekly count of bald eagles during the fall semester for the citizen science class at the Haines School in Haines, AK. The project is part of a field-based for-credit class, sponsored by the Takshanuk Watershed Council, in which students participate in research studies and learn about field data collection. Under the guidance of Pam Randles, Takshanuk Watershed Council Education Director, students count bald eagles in the Chilkat River Valley using spotting scopes at 10 locations and present their data at the Bald Eagle Festival held in November in Haines. During late fall, bald eagles congregate along the Chilkat River near Haines to feed on salmon in what is believed to be the largest gathering of bald eagles in the world. This sounded perfect. Students interested in doing real science and fieldwork for their community sounded like a publishable story to me. I also recorded quite a bit of natural sound of the students doing their eagle count survey. My goal is to produce along with the still photo coverage, an audio-only report and perhaps a multimedia report (audio, video, and stills). There were aspects of the process the citizen scientists use to do their counts that made it perfect for an audio-only report. Bet you never thought a photographer would propose something like that!
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Capturing and tracking bald eagles from the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve
While working with the Citizen Science students I discovered they would be meeting a team of researchers who were capturing bald eagles for a migration study of the eagles that visit the Chilkat River in Alaska. The study is being conducted by Rachel Wheat, a graduate student at the University of California Santa Cruz. She hopes to learn how closely bald eagles track salmon availability across time and space. The bald eagles are being tracked using solar-powered GPS satellite transmitters (also known as a PTT – platform transmitter terminal) that attach to the backs of the eagles using a lightweight harness. Helping with the eagle capturing was Steve Lewis, Raptor Management Coordinator, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service – Juneau Field Office.
Lewis employed leg snare traps and a net launcher for the capturing. Leg snare traps employ a looped cord on a hinged perch. When a bald eagle lands on the perch a spring is sprung which tightens a looped cord around the bald eagle’s legs. The net launcher uses three projectiles attached to a large lightweight net. A salmon carcass is used at bait in front of the launcher. A radio-controlled trigger to launch the net is used when an eagle lands next to the bait. In addition to the GPS satellite transmitter installation, researchers attached leg id bands and took measurements including blood and a small feather sample for analysis. To keep the eagle calm during the entire process, a hood covered the bald eagle’s eyes and leather booties protected researchers from the eagle’s talons.
Information about Wheat’s bald eagle migration study and the latest updates on the locations of the bald eagles she is tracking can be found on the Ecology Alaska website.
Social media and education outreach are an important facet of Wheat’s project. Wheat along with Yiwei Wang, graduate student, University of California Santa Cruz and Dr. Taal Levi, wildlife ecologist, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies funded their various Alaska research projects through an innovative Kickstarter fundraising campaign. I highly recommend that you check out the Ecology Alaska website. They are a group of excited and dedicated scientists who do a great job of making science understandable and fun.
I’m really looking forward to telling the story of both the Citizen Science eagle count survey and University of California – Santa Cruz migration research efforts as I work on producing publishable packages about their work.
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This photo of the ice and snow covered Connelly Lake (left) was taken in mid-July. Alaska Power and Telephone Company is proposing to dam Connelly Lake and build a powerhouse below the lake near the Chilkoot River (right) in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. The Chilkoot River is an important salmon spawning stream supporting bald eagles and bears. The large lake in the background is Chilkoot Lake. Beyond Chilkoot Lake is Lutak Inlet of the Lynn Canal.
I visit Haines, Alaska several times a year as part of my ongoing project photographing and filming the bald eagles that congregate in the nearby Chilkoot and Chilkat River Valleys each fall. I look forward to my visits for the friendly people and the natural beauty of the area — arguably some of the best any town in Alaska has to offer.
Haines is a a small town (population 2,554) nestled in between the majestic Takhinsha and Takshanuk Mountains and the bountiful salmon-rich ocean waters of the Lynn Canal. Much of the Haines Borough boundary is the mountains that separate it from Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve with its incredible glaciers, and its summer visitors — humpback whales. Abutting Glacier Bay National Park and up the highway from Haines are three more National or Provincial Parks (Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Kluane National Park (Canada) and Tatshenshini-Alsek Park (Canada). Together they form the one of the largest internationally protected areas on the planet. While challenging to access, that is still quite a backyard to have.
The upper Lynn Canal area of Haines is not just rich in beauty and wildlife but is also rich in resources — rich in minerals and rich in fisheries. Chilkoot River salmon are harvested by commercial fishermen, by sports fishermen, and for subsistence. Salmon play an important role in the area’s economy and lifestyle. The Connelly Lake Hydro Aquatic Studies Report for 2012 prepared by the Shipley Group for Alaska Power and Telephone Company (AP&T) states that according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, 41 percent of the sockeye salmon in the upper Lynn Canal come from the Chilkoot River with 25 percent of those salmon spawning in the Chilkoot River drainage above Chilkoot Lake. The value of the fishery is estimated at more than $1,000,000 annually.
So when AP&T, the power company that serves Haines, announced a proposal for a hydroelectric project using a high alpine lake above one of the area’s important salmon spawning rivers, I couldn’t help but wonder how this delicate balance of resources would play out with locals. This curiosity led me to fly above the lake to see for myself.
Connelly Lake (formerly known as Upper Chilkoot Lake) is the focus of a proposed $32 million, 12-megawatt hydroelectric project by AP&T. The power company proposes to build a dam at the outlet of the 90-acre alpine lake that would create a 160-acre reservoir and a 6,200-foot-long penstock down the side of the mountain where water would be delivered to two turbine generators located in a powerhouse near the Chilkoot River into which the lake water would be discharged. Some of the main features of the proposed Connelly Lake project (for example portions of the penstock, the powerhouse, access roads, and the transmission line) would be located in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve and the Haines State Forest.
Environmental concerns include the impact construction and project operation would have on fish spawning and rearing habitat (water turbidity issues), and bald eagles. Bears and bald eagles rely on the salmon that use the Chilkoot Valley in the fall and early winter when they are attracted to late spawning salmon runs. AP&T wants to build the project to replace an undersea cable that currently supplies Haines with hydro-powered electricity from Skagway. If the cable would ever become unusable, then Haines would need to depend on diesel-generated electricity produced in Haines.
After seeing Connelly Lake and how it is situated high above the Chilkoot River, my immediate question is how well would the dam stand up to earthquakes? I think back to the collapse of a man-made mountain top reservoir outside St. Louis, Missouri (Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station); also built for generating electricity. It sent a billion gallons of water down the mountain washing away a dense growth forest and scouring the ground down to bedrock before sending a 20 foot high crest of water down one of the prettiest streams in the state.
While most Haines residents see clean hydropower as a viable and economical solution to the community’s growing power needs, some feel that it might come at too high a price if the salmon spawning waters of the Chilkoot River are put at risk or even worse, damaged. Others see it as vital if Haines wants to grow. The Connelly Lake hydropower project is still in it’s early stages. How it will play out is unclear.
If you are interested in learning more about the project, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission posts documents pertaining to the project online. As an example, the Second Six Month Progress Report” from Alaska Power & Telephone Company (26MB download) has quite a bit of research study information regarding the salmon and other fish that inhabit the Chilkoot River. You can find other documents like this by searching the FERC Online eLibrary using the “Full Text Search” feature. Search for “Connelly Lake.”
The outlet stream of Connelly Lake, Connelly Creek (center), descends 2,138 feet to the floor of the Chilkoot Valley where it joins the Chilkoot River. A 6,200-foot-long penstock would be built down the side of the mountain where water would be delivered to two turbine generators located in a powerhouse near the Chilkoot River into which the lake water would be discharged. Some of the main features of the proposed Connelly Lake hydroelectric project would be located in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve and the Haines State Forest.
I’m starting to Edit my way through a backlog of images from last summer, in particular images taken in the Yukon and Haines, Alaska areas. I’ll be posting more about these trips in the future. In the meantime, one photo made me laugh as I was quickly looking through the images.
It was this photo of a handsome American black bear (Ursus americanus) that fleetingly made eye contact with me mid-chew while it was eating dandelions. The spot where I photographed the black bear, just outside the boundary of Kluane National Park and Preserve along Yukon Highway 3 in Yukon, Canada, had looked promising for bear photos. Several days earlier I had spotted a grizzly munching lunch in the same dandelion patch. The openness of the patch and accessibility made me think it was a spot worth returning to. I’m glad I did. I watched the black bear eat for close to 40 minutes. I’m certain the bear knew I was watching him through my long 600mm telephoto lens but he ignored my presence for the entire time, except for this one split second when he gave me a glance. He was much more concerned about eating and … taking a nap. During much of this unusually pleasant day, as I spent my time watching, the bear snoozed. Which was something I would have liked to do, but probably not smart idea in bear country. Eventually the black bear woke up and went back to business and munched some more, and in the process, collecting fluffy white dandelion seed pods on his jet black fur.
While most of a black bear’s diet is vegetation, black bears are omnivores; meaning that they eat both plants and animals (grasses, berries, roots, insects, fish and mammals). Black bears typically weight 200 to 600 pounds. Surprisingly, not all black bears are black in color — some are brown, brown or even blond. They are most easily distinguished from grizzly bears by the lack of the pronounced shoulder hump found in a grizzly bear. The black bear is not considered to be a threatened species, though care not to allow them to get human food and garbage is needed to protect them from conflicts with humans.
On all my trips to the far north, the one thing I always wish for is to see bears. I can’t think of a trip when I haven’t seen one, often seeing them everyday while backpacking or sea kayaking. It was another great day. Here are some more images as proof.
I’m often asked what the mosquitoes are like in Alaska. Well, if you ask someone from Alaska, they are likely to respond somewhat jokingly with “you mean the state bird?”
Honestly, I’ve never found mosquitoes a problem, but then again I’m pretty tolerant of the little vampires, even in mosquito-rich enclaves like the Wonder Lake area of Denali National Park.
My secret is that I simply tell myself that I’m going to encounter them and yes, they may be intense. In other words, I play a mind game on myself. For many reasons I rarely will use mosquito repellant. Among them — I hate the smell, I worry that grizzly bears might be curious about the smell, DEET (which is what you want in your spray) has been linked to causing serious neurological and other health problems, and the repellant melts the fabric and plastic of many forms of outdoor clothing and equipment. In the absolute worse cases I will drag out a head net For that to happen, the mosquitoes have to be to the point where I’m breathing in mosquitoes with every breath. What you pray for in mosquito-rich areas is for wind. Anything above four miles-per-hour usually grounds the suckers.
Sometimes your hands are both busy and you can’t do anything about it. An example, is the above photo of my hand after a day of kayaking in the Adams Inlet of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. An anti-itch gel or cream like Benadryl (diphenhydramine) will offer some relief.
So how bad have they been? Well, once near Wonder Lake in Denali National Park and Preserve, I slapped the top of my hand to kill the mosquitoes on it. How many did I kill, I counted close to twenty dead on the top of my hand. Yes, TWENTY!
Thank goodness for the buggers though. Wonder Lake is one of the most beautiful places on the planet when the weather is clear and you can view Mt. McKinley, aka Denali. The ravenous mosquito population there, while annoying to park visitors, pollinate the flowers and berries, and are an important link in the food chain. They also keeps the number of campers down. Only the hardy are willing to brave their meals with the buzzing and biting, so most vistors to Wonder Lake keep their visit short. I’ve never had a problem getting a spot there — a wondrous place that should easily have a waiting list of hundreds of campers.
I am probably the only photographer in the universe to have a photograph displayed under a cow chip.
My photo of a pair of dung beetles rolling a ball of bison dung, taken at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in the Kansas Flint Hills, is part of an interactive display at the Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan, Kansas. To see the photo, you had to flip the ‘cow chip’ up. Brilliant! I love it. My other photo of bison on the tallgrass prairie was displayed more traditionally as a five foot panorama that is part of the permanent interpretive exhibits at the center. The panorama was impressive, but not as much fun as the cow chip exhibit.
When I attended the grand opening of the center back in April I knew the Flint Hills Discovery Center had licensed two of my photos and was eager to see how they were used. I quickly found the panorama, but I looked and looked for the dung beetle photo. I thought that perhaps they decided to not to use the photo. It wasn’t until I started to read the interpretive exhibits closely that I discovered the photo under the cow chip.
The 35,000-square-foot Flint Hills Discovery Center is worthy of spending time, easily a morning, if you are in the Manhattan area. The $24.5 million facility showcases the science and cultural history of the Flint Hills tallgrass prairie. The tallgrass prairie is one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems with less than four percent of the original 140 million acres of tallgrass prairie remaining in North America. Most of the remaining tallgrass prairie is in the Flint Hills. The Flint Hills Discovery Center is a good starting place if you plan to visit the nearby Konza Prairie, managed by The Nature Conservancy, or the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve near Strong City, co-managed by the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy.
Attractions of the Flint Hills Discovery Center include: an ‘underground forest’ depicting the long roots of prairie plants including the 7-foot roots of bluestem prairie grass; explanations of importance of fire to the Flint Hills tallgrass prairie; and exhibits about the people and cultural history of the Flint Hills. One of my favorite exhibits is the15-minute ‘immersive experience’ film which has special effects including smoke, fog, mist and wind which appear in the theater as the high definition film is shown on a large panoramic screen.
The Flint Hills Discovery Center, owned by the city of Manhattan, was designed by the museum architectural firm Vern Johnson Inc. with interpretive design and planning by Hilferty and Associates. In addition to the permanent interactive exhibits, there is space for temporary exhibits, and areas for community programs and outreach activities.
I’m incredibly excited about this acrylic face mount print that I ordered for myself – it almost jumps off the wall! Without question acrylic face mounted prints are the ultimate in photograph presentation. This 30″x20″ photo of an amau fern taken at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii has the look of a wet print. The simple borderless presentation is offset from the wall. These acrylic face mount fine art prints are ready to hang. When you consider the cost of matting and framing a large print, the initially more expensive acrylic face mount prints become more comparable.
iPhone field report: Having an cellphone camera means you always have a camera with you. As the saying goes, the best camera is the camera that you have with you. But knowing that you have the iPhone camera always at your disposal can make you lazy. I sure wish I had my Nikon D4 when I shot the above photo of sunlight filtering through the trees along a creek in Rock Bridge Memorial State Park just outside of Columbia, Mo. The image looks somewhat acceptable on the screen and could make a small print, but that is about it. The bigger problem in my mind, is that the image is shot in jpeg image format, causing the image to lack the tonal range that is possible when shooting with a professional camera in the camera’s native raw image format.
Note to self. Always have the iPhone at the ready, but take the Nikon too. I suspect this will be a lesson that I’m likely to learn several more times before it sinks in. Sigh. …
Sometimes I will convert ‘interior forest’ type of photos into black and white images. I like how the black & white tones simplify the image, while lending a sense of mystery to the forest. Another example of where I have done this is the photo below (shot with my Nikon D3) of an assortment of ferns, including Hapu’u tree ferns, in a small crater in the wet forest near Nahuku (Thurston Lava Tube) at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii. The fern forest photo makes a impressive and stunning large print.
